>> guest: that is a tough question probably what she saw it do to bert. >> host: how was she with the media? you talked about him but did she give formal interviews? >> guest: she did not. . .

>> many use the radio. and then talk a little bit about how this will help the hoover family and their approach? >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] this is a recent account. and so the way it goes. [inaudible] [inaudible] we are helping so valiantly and you are going to be helping as

delicately as well as long as the need lasts. ever faithful to trust is a constantly diminishing demand. >> in some way, this included his tracks to the nation. >> absolutely. she is the first first lady to make a national radio talk and to try and push this voluntarist message, which is very much something that herbert hoover is doing at this time. and it's interesting that she is doing these talks about the girl scouts movement, which in 1932, she comes up with a plan after the formulation. they formulated it. but it's basically this effort to try to muster the resources of the girl scouts into a more coordinated and organized effort to help out coordinating with state police agencies and she

actually has an individual who at the same time was working with the president by that timeframe as well. and so we are very moved by the voluntarist work. and we are trying to urge the nation to kind of work went others as the girl scouts are doing. they are actually coordinating within the administration. so she is complement and his policies. >> host: on this question about dealing with the press, she kept something so private that her papers were not open until four years after her death because it would violate the privacy of people she helped with financial aid. he spent time with her sisters, right? >> yes, her papers would not be opened until 40 years after she passed away.

because of concerns about things that may have been written about people and her correspondence, she was very interesting. she really made a lot of use of the radio to try to promote their causes with the girl scouts and also to push terrorism. >> host: we have a call from west covina, california. >> caller: thank you so much for taking my call in your outstanding program. there has not been any mention of whether or not they had children. did they have children and did they die in infancy, or did they live and do they have successes? thank you very much. >> guest: they had two boys, herbert and alan. they had been born in london because this is where berg was

working at the time and the hoovers lived there. and one of the interesting things is their older son, herbert junior who was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1931 he went for his physical time to serve in the reserves. tuberculosis at that time was a very serious disease and it was not always curable. this was pre-antibiotics. and they actually had herbert junior living there for the beginning of his convalescence and they continued his convalescence and this proceeded. during the year that herbert junior was convalescing, they invited the daughter-in-law and children to live in the white house there were children and that wasn't necessarily

successful because they didn't want the children photographed and they didn't want things written about them. >> this was a period a time when the nation was transfixed by the lindbergh baby kidnapping. i'm wondering whether that affected your sense of security for the white house and whether or not this was worrisome to other children in the family. >> there was increased security after the lindbergh kidnapping in order to protect and whatever children might feel at various times. but there is also an increased fascination, especially about the scale of the depression that continued. security is certainly a very important factor in the white house at this time. and also very vigilant.

>> host: how is the marriage affected by the great depression? >> they had always been close partners, but they were not disclosed in the partnership during the white house. burke kind of pulled into himself a little bit, and was not as communicative as he had done. it took a total. one of the hoovers sons is supposedly said that he felt that his parents being in the white house for those four years was a mistake because of the stress that on the relationship. >> host: jennifer sherman sends a tweet trust thing that i realized that the real role of first lady of the united states is advisor and chief or gamekeeper. the next is stephen who is watching us in new york city. >> caller: hello, i wanted to know where the hoovers the wealthiest while the poor families?

>> host: they certainly were wealthy. where did the wealthiest? >> guest: i do not know. the interesting thing was we have to consider them compared to like someone like ted kennedy fortune worry bush fortune. [laughter] >> host: they believe that george washington was the wealthiest if you can calculate everything here based on this and in today's dollars it is anywhere from 75 to $19 million. they even think he might have been wealthier and his successor, fdr, who had inherited this and have made it from scratch, all of his wealth. he was one of the wealthiest. >> host: the next caller is from

virginia. this is dan on the air. >> caller: thank you very much for taking my call i was one of where the library was. >> host: i am so sorry, i push the button at the wrong time. let's take another question. questions or santa fe. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a native of iowa. my only real experience with the hoovers was a television series called baxters of the white house. >> host: we are going to stop that question because of was given early in the program. some had seen the same series. and you said that they were not always the best but the people that worked in the white house? >> guest: we have to be careful about herbert hoover and the

telling of the story. there was money to be made because people made money off of telling that story's. >> host: the accounts exist, but the veracity something to be looked at. >> guest: yes. >> host: we visit the smithsonian oftentimes. >> we hoover was a fashionable first lady and we have two of hr first ladies on display. here's one dress that is something like a garden party dress very the. the other one is a reception dress. and this is a reception dress worn for the girl scouts of america. she was not only the honor your president, been enacted active girl scout before time in office. taking a tour storage area, we will see more than the long

dresses and more pieces that belongs to lou hoover. >> this is a pair of shoes that she wore in her white house portrait. she made best dressed list before she became the first lady and was the first first lady to appear in the magazine called the vote. dressed in grecian folds, this was something she donated to the museum to be worn worn by her mannequin in the first lady exhibit. it was worn with the shoes and represented mrs. hoover and the of is a good example. here is a black-and-white silver pattern and a wonderful addition to the exhibit. >> host: that is the view of some of the first lady collection at the smithsonian.

it has been so helpful to us. what did she do to change the white house during her tenure? >> guest: one of the things that she did was on the social side, which as we talked about was how things are structured. i'm thinking of the structure of the actual building. so one of the things that she did was refurbishing on the second floor. we saw this in one of the earlier clips, drawings of butterflies and flowers, she did drawings of what she wanted the bookcases to look like on the second floor. she was also involved with the redoing of some of the downstairs areas, not the green room, which had been started under grace coolidge and furnished by a committee that had been appointed by congress. but she did some refurbishing and the blue room as well. >> host: these were years of

prohibition. what were their attitudes of prohibition? sometimes they would have parties with alcohol inside the townhouse. >> guest: i believe that they respected prohibition and hoover had campaigned in 1928. and he was officially in favor of prohibition. as we mentioned earlier, lou hoover had chaired the committee in 1924 in on law enforcement and i had heard that on his way home from work he was the secretary of commerce and it was the entire territory and that we had a cartel at the end of the day. so i think that hoover certainly had a quaker background, which allowed him to be more pro-temperance. >> host: how popular was that at this point?

>> guest: it is still unclear whether it was bad. so it's difficult for people to get a real feel of the nation. as we mentioned before, the campaign of al smith was decisive in part because he is suggesting not a repeal of prohibition, but may be a revision of it to give the states the chance to vote as it was known in those times. by 1932, prohibition has been incredibly unpopular. in large part because of the kinds of negative impact that it had in terms of organized crime. in 1932, herbert hoover sort of said maybe he will be okay with certain kinds of things at the state level. but the democrats had committed to repealing prohibition.

>> host: suis watching us in colorado springs. >> caller: good evening and thank you for this program. it was mentioned earlier that the rivers -- hoovers were multimillionaires prior to the presidency. i'm wondering how they made their money. thank you so much. >> guest: herbert hoover was a mining engineer and he was also paid very well for that and he also invested in minds that were important. >> host: is the criticism of the man in the white house used to mount, here are some quotes from a lot of the first individuals to give you some sense of what the personal reactions were. lou hoover said i was incensed that much reading about the president having president having no thought for the little man defending all his energies

towards saving the plutocrat. and for his part, here's one from herbert hoover that said she was oversensitive and the status of political life were known doubt hurt. >> guest: i believe the first one i recall correctly is the letters that she wrote to her children trying to justify and kind of frame the legacy, talking about how he had always been concerned about the little man and how angry and upset she was about the way he was being treated in the way he was being pretty well ripped apart in the press. bert is just a husband who sets his ways going on with his wife and had a response to it. but this is also in his response to his memoirs. and it is sometimes in his memoirs, his memory is a little bit different from what actually

happened. >> host: despite his deepening depression, herbert hoover makes a piece for reelection. so what does this tell us about the 1932 election outcome? >> guest: at first to stand for the election, he is not necessarily committed to running for reelection during that time. the idea of the incumbent president actively seeking the election is a little bit unseemly and herbert hoover had immense respect for them in the office that he holds. so he decides that he was going to make a couple of speeches and was going to be very dignified and restrained and then overcome this in the fall of 1932 that he had been in serious trouble. and then in september, maine was a traditional republican

territory and this was again a pre-opinion poll of time and an indication that he was in trouble. so he then essentially embarked upon what we would call crisscrossing the country and getting a number of addresses and returns home to his home in palo alto to wait out the results and it is a landslide against him. it is almost bigger than the one in this area. so it is a very rapid turnaround for a man to have such high hopes. >> host: how old was she in that election? >> guest: this was a stop to her and i think that one of the reasons why she wanted to invite the woman. it was to try to some -- do

cementing of the fence is that she hadn't done the previous 3.5 years. she's she is continuing to do her work with the girl scouts and for age and to promote volunteerism. and she is trying to see that he gets reelected by her support. >> host: do we know their personal reaction to the outcome? >> guest: there is disappointment, but she says that we are still here and still moving on. so i think that there was some hurt in some of those combinations at the way they have been treated when they tried so hard with a bit of relief that the responsibility will not be there much longer. >> host: there is a deep connection with palo alto, california. herbert hoover designed house there and we will learn about that next. >> we are at the lou hoover house here at stanford university. it is significant because this was the primary residence of the hoovers and known as the family headquarters, and it is significant as it relates to lou

hoover because she was the one who designed it. worked with several architects to come up with the plans and they gave her advice and she was the driving force behind the design of the house. it was something that really impressed the architects who helped her with the formal blueprints and plans, that she had such a strong grasp of design and how she wanted the house to look even though she was not an architect and that was not her professional training. she was a geologist, but she had a very good sense of space and design. how she wanted the house to look. it was something that she was intimately involved in and we are lucky to have a lot of the original drawings and correspondence related to the design and construction back at the hoover archives and stanford university archives. we are looking at the building and design of the house. it is especially important because it shows how involved lou henry was in designing

house. here are some of the drawings from the design of the house. we have some details of the cabinets that are going to be installed. here we have some design details that were lightly sketched by herself and a lot of her influence came from her travels in the southwest of the united states. pueblo architecture and from her travels in north africa when she traveled with herbert hoover. so there is definitely an influence of native cultures and native american cultures as well and in influencing the architecture of the house. you can see the initial design for the arches above the doorway and then that was changed. there are definitely a lot of arches in the house as well. what we have here are floorplans of the house.

showing details of the rooms. the living room there. the terrace there. you can see that the rooms are designed in a way where they easily exit out and to the outside be outside and outdoors and it is a great legacy of hers because she designed the house and she indicated that it was inspired and had close involvement in all aspects of the house's creation. >> host: obviously a connection with the stanford university campus only brightened over the years as this was a major part of the campus there. where did the money from that come from? was endowed by them or was it part of a private contribution? >> guest: i am not sure about the hoover institute. the one rinconsito del mar mexican lou hoover was still alive, she

was very active in building a musical community there. but later possibly after her husband passed away, she was involved with everything. >> host: what about the preservation and west branch, iowa? >> guest: yes, that is where he was born and it was attempted by lou hoover to purchase it and the family was not interested in selling at the time. at some point they were able to acquire that property and it is now the hoover presidential library with the restoration of the buildings from his childhood >> host: it was dedicated in 1962 and by that time lou hoover had passed. but herbert hoover was there for the dedication. let's show you that next. >> the records of supreme action by the american people.

the devotion and sacrifice to their ideals. in these records there are many unfavorable remarks made by political opponents, as well as the striking affection i are friends. we may hope that future students will rely upon our friends. [applause] state. >> host: herbert hoover lived until he was 90 years old and he set a record. >> guest: until after he was the longest-serving ex-president of all time and jimmy carter had just took that position laster. >> host: gerald ford and ronald

reagan lived longer than he, surpassing the record of herbert hoover until that time. so tell us about the death of lou hoover. >> guest: lou hoover had continued to be very physically active as we have talked about earlier in the shell. she was still riding a horse and camping and sleeping on the ground up until her late 60s. she had wanted to continue to live in palo alto. herbert had enjoyed the stimulation of new new york city and they had the east coast and west coast kind of marriage until about 1940 and he convinced her to make her base with him there in new york city and they lived in an apartment in waldorf-astoria and she had gone out to dinner with a friend in january of 1944 and she changed her mind and said no, let's take a cab. she said goodbye to her friend and went upstairs to her apartment and he was getting ready to go out with a friend of his and he said, let me just say

goodbye to lou hoover and he went into her room and she was collapsed and already dead on the floor. she died of a heart attack. >> host: timothy of sun city, california. you are on. >> caller: hello, i am the grandson of jean henri large the sister of lou hoover and i just want to express how great of a lady she is and how much i appreciate her as well as her husband. i was born in palo alto and i just wanted to express that they really did care for their kids and grandkids and relatives. >> host: we hope that we have done a fair job tonight. thank you for your call. well, before you go onto her legacy, where is she very? >> guest: she was originally buried in palo alto and then they actually exhumed her body and now she is next to herbert at west branch.

>> host: when the government opens again and all these institutions are back, you can go to west branch and visit the herbert hoover presidential library there. so since they were a couple who did so much better, what should the legacy be? >> guest: is the first lady, her legacy is the way in which you try to utilize her role as first lady to make a call to action. also it dovetails with a kind of approach and philosophy of government that her husband has. so they have a legacy in terms of presidential couples and the delicate balance between them and the political side of what the first ladies are increasingly expected to do. and i think that she really started along a path.

>> host: we will take a call from marlon in north dakota. >> host: hello? >> caller: hello, one of the biggest things was during the campaign was repeating the 18th amendment and i grew up in a swedish community in nebraska, all of them conservative and very religious, everyone voted for herbert hoover. also the market crash in 1929, the bank busted at the same time and i was seven years old then and i wanted to go collect the money when the banks broke. it was named for him during the hoover administration, the midwest drought started with a dust storm away from north dakota all the way through nebraska through oklahoma. >> host: thank you. you have given us a good

opportunity about what should her legacy be and how should we view the hoover administration in hindsight. >> guest: what will the thesis be? [laughter] >> guest: if she had not been succeeded by a woman who served in the position for 13 years, like eleanor roosevelt, i think we would remember a lot more now. but the activism and a lot of her non-political agenda in working with the girl scouts include four things that they supported like 4-h and they did not have to have political repercussions or political connections. as far as remembering them from the depression, i think that -- i don't think that anyone knew how to handle this because we have had depressions before. this is the first one that

lasted as long as it did. and another thing to remember is he really did not pull out of the depression until we entered world war ii. and so even with all of the legislation that frequent roosevelt was able to get congress to pass, and of itself it did not and how to improve the economy until things change very radically. >> host: we thank annette dunlap and emily charnook for being our guests. and our thanks to the white house historical association for their help. and the logo. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> next monday on first lady's influence and image, eleanor roosevelt. after the attack on pearl harbor, the first lady of president roosevelt who spoke to the people of america. she gave a radio address to the nation that she wrote. during her 12 years in the white house, eleanor roosevelt traveled in support of the new deal policy and causes like education and raising wage and civil rights. she held regular press conferences as first lady and invited only women reporters to cover them. and she was the first lady to travel overseas without the president. the first to address a national political convention in the first to write her own daily syndicated column. join us for a two-hour program

as we explore the life and legacy of eleanor roosevelt on the influence and image of the first ladies next monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span3, and c-span radio. >> and we are offering a special edition of the book, first ladies of the united states of america, presenting a portion of each first lady and comments from noted historians from the role of first lady throughout history. it is available of the price of 1290 -- $12.95 plus shipping. welcome to the white house is produced by the white house historical association. it details the tenure of each first lady. find out more at c-span.org lash first ladies. >> you are watching c-span2 at politics and public affairs

featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights, watch key public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and schedules on at her website and you can join in the conversation on social media sites as well. >> now, this is a reason ship that was built here in 1812 during the winter of 1813 for the battle of lake erie and it was part of the rest of the squadron that was built there. it incorporates the structural frame of the pieces and they are

symbolic and what is original but the shifts there is that they are working with what the crew has to do. >> [inaudible] >> we teach people history and the war of 1812 and the will were of the great lakes, really most of the learning takes place on board and is about function with the members of the team's country. it is one of real value now and there are certain attitudes that are affected and we are trying to perpetuate them to keep them going. >> the commander would help lead to victory in the battle of lake erie. the rest of this airs this

weekend as we look at the history and literary life of erie, pennsylvpennsylv ania on c-span2 and c-span3. >> i would never ask a negative question. i think it is insulting to the person that you want to talk to and it creates a bad impression about what you're doing. you are you're asking for someone's time because you need information that will lead you to a better understanding of your subject. now sometimes you get negative information when you really don't want to, and you haven't even asked for. and to ask him about a senate wide function in honor of the first lady. she said to me that i know why you are calling. do you want me to repeat those nasty things that nancy reagan was telling us yesterday. [laughter] [laughter]

>> actually, all i wanted to find out how much money the senate once had raised for mrs. reagan's drug abuse fun. and that telephone call i got more than i asked for and i got every single word. reporter: political intrigue and american culture. kitty kelley will sit down for your comments live for three hours beginning at noon eastern on november 3 on booktv's in depth. in the months ahead, look for other guests, including christina hoff sommers on december 1 and radio talk show host on january 6. right now in our book club, join other viewers with john lewis. what see what others are saying and post your own comments. find out more at booktv.org/bookclub. >> next a national viewer phone call panel with centrist

manifesto at the 13th national book festival on the national mall in washington dc. this is about a half-hour. >> joining us now is charles whelen who has written this book, the centrist manifesto. here's the cover. sir, is this a call for a third party? >> yes, it is, or a third-party movement. something that empowers people to kind of re-capture at the progress. the showdown, those kinds of things, and the details that capture this has been a call and a strategy to kind of re-capture political strength for the middle, where most americans are and are going. >> a lot of people are saying that they have been there and done that.

>> they have done this from the extreme. saying that ralph nader messed it up. you might think that teddy roosevelt and the whole party, we have a third-party movement, those that can be a mistake. one that comes from outside the mainstream, you think of it as kind of a bell curve and if you have a third-party movement, this is a complete dynamic. and this is the electoral college there and there is no way a third-party movement is going to win the presidency in the near term. the strategy in the book is all built around the u.s. senate which is to say that if you can muster some centrist strength and handful of states, a senator from one party to another, we

know that they make a difference. you know what the two parties are going to do. they're going to talk crazy talk and they will walk back and they kind of give us this. there would be a candidate in the middle of a person has to do is hold 34% of the vote. and then you have this percentage. >> in your view, has the tea party are even broken? >> no, i think that they are active at times particularly in the sun at the rehab bipartisan working groups. you still see it to this day. a lot of the legislation came out of this working group.

when you have a mass series of retirement come out bill bradley, and a number of other relatively moderate individuals from both sides. and we started seeing more partisanship at large from the senate lost some of the ability to do that. but you still see the best of the u.s. government and coming out of the bipartisan working group's so we are talking about when the gang of six becomes a gang of 12 macbook is "the centrist manifesto." if you would like to participate on a the conversation, here is the phone number to zero to 585 and if you live in the mountains and pacific time zones, you can make a comment on her facebook page or on our twitter page, twitter.com/booktv.

facebook.com/booktv. so what is your background? >> one is my very first job out of college was writing speeches for an individual known as doc hudson, who is the governor of maine, a democrat. he was one of last new england republicans. very involving cases about education on paper now. but fiscally conservative and perhaps hunted to extinction. after that i became a policy person i wrote for the economist and i would get involved in politics and i was watching it as an outsider. so thinking about everything with social security and so on.

so i was in chicago for probably 20 years happily teaching and then more relevant, he points rahm emanuel as his chief of staff and he was my congressman. everyone thought that he would be there for a lifetime. the governor of illinois had just been indicted, which is relevant because all of the chicago politicians froze in place. there is no successor, no machine. on last season we just elected a guy that taught at the university of chicago. and he was great. so i decided i was going to care about this stuff, i ought to be willing to give him the ring. so i ran for the seat is a fiscally conservative democrat and my politics have not moved very far, but i'm now on the other party and their are incidents where i cannot get out of the democratic party. so by going with the teachers

union, they were saying how you feel about performance-based pay and i have a wife who ran a software company and then became a math teacher in an inner-city school. so i know a lot about inner-city education. it is important with what we have to do. and right now it's like, okay, we have 15 more minutes, we really don't have to do this. and it's like, okay, if you can't endorse me, i cannot wait this primary. and i was a person without a party and there were a lot of other people like me out there. it was a combination of experiences that drove me to this. >> charles whelen is our guest. how do you define effective? take us to an issue. >> okay, so there does have to be a certain kind of thing involved. but it is the handful of things to take the best of these funds under a lot of these

individuals. i think their heart is in the right place. the richest country in the history of civilization should be voting for these people. taking the welfare spending where we need it most, make an argument on the right about environment, maybe not effectively what they propose, but certainly relevant individuals and we should be doing something about environmental responsibility. i think that the republicans are right on the fiscal issues and i don't think they're going about it the right way. i don't think they have actually done much about it. george w. bush was not exactly fiscally conservative. but the idea was important and there were a lot of people who cared about him. he takes simple concepts like fiscal responsibility, we have to get the long-term books in balance, environmental responsibility in just those two bumper stickers, have laminated both parties.

and this is fiscally responsible and environmentally responsible. they are about not being in debt today at the expense of tomorrow. i would throw this in, that means being pro-gay marriage because it doesn't mean those as part of this, but it also means you can have a gun in your home as soon as you take this home, then we need to talk. and then i would say a genuine commitment to economic opportunity and i think both parties talk about that and neither has delivered. are that we really have to get back to a place with income inequality and precarious middle class where we offer an opportunity for everyone who is born in the country. >> robert, you are the first color with charles. >> caller: good morning. just the last 10 minutes we have been talking about this. living in the west tennessee

area in charles city, we are more conservative. we have a movement in west tennessee that has a constitutional party and senator lamar alexander. and a lot of us just fill out a small minority for the entire country. even with both parties. so when you look at the history, how do you do that? >> i think part of what is going on is the primary process. that empowers a minority in each party. so who shows up in primary elections their opinions are not always in sync with the electorate. they also have the folks that are waiting in the wings to knock off any incumbents who have the audacity, and i would

argue the wisdom to make a compromise on some of the things that we actually have to do. so as long as the folks who are showing up in primaries, giving the money, if you will, they are the ones who determine who we get to pick from on the general election ballot and then we will continue to get a system that is polarized as a result. i would also argue that it is kind of our fault, which because sometimes they show up in the primaries. so the rest of them, we are not willing to pay attention and if we are not willing to engage, then we are kind of getting what we deserve. i have offered to the centrist party is a place where the metal can actually get energized and show up. >> have we had a centrist president? >> we have someone centrist tendencies. clinton was willing to compromise with the republicans, the welfare reform and other things like that and those

things were very significant and pieces of legislation. if you look at the tax policy side, the most significant tax overhaul we have ever had, it was a tax reform of 1986 and reagan was talking about the lower rates that made perfect sense and it was a democrat of chicago who is chairman of the ways and means and chair of the senate finance committee and that was part of the bipartisan effort and reagan was willing to compromise with those folks and they were willing to compromise with the president. we have absolutely had somewhat tendencies and legislative leaders willing to meet them. we are not saying enough of that right now. >> were dc harry reid and mitch mcconnell and john boehner? >> so what happens to those folks if we manage to elect three or four or five centrist senators. we get to talk about the last piece of the strategy.

so there are a number of states that collect centrist senators. you have to roll it up one step further, imagine the senate that is 47 democrats, six centrist and some republicans. they are the swing votes. and they are not crazies, these are not the smallest coalitions in this elementary coalition but right in the middle. they are the arbiters that bridge between the two parties and good things happen. one is that no one is an enemy, you can turn to the republicans and say that this hearing comments about tax reform, here are the votes. if you're serious about this, here are six votes. the better question about harry reid, i don't think that you see them. the reason i don't think you see them as the first decision of the chamber has to make is who is the majority leader and there is no majority. so if they determine who is the majority leader, republicans are not going to put a mitch mcconnell and the the democrats are not going to go to perry

reed and they are going to say who is the most conservative person that we can put up who is also going to get this. it's almost like baseball arbitration. we're still going to have the house and john boehner know that this is difficult, but i think part of what is going on is you would change the dynamic in terms of who actually leads the chamber. >> his website is naked economics.com. up next is still calling from new york state. >> caller: hello. i really enjoyed listening to your guests. this is a great question. i am a moderate republican, and my question is as we come down to who i dislike more, tea party were teachers unions, to decide who i can support now. and as a moderate republican i think that the middle, we get whatever we deserve.

we don't show up for primaries and you deserve what you get. so maybe we are whistling in the dark to try to get centrist people to try to take action and go out and little things like that is almost too much. >> host: you have talked about being a moderate republican and touched on teachers union. can you name two or three issues where you stand? >> caller: yes, the deficit. i think we need to cut the deficit. cut spending and raise taxes. but two republicans are raising taxes, and the other side is to cut spending. and i guess i am a minority there. and i'm talking and i appreciate listening to your guests.

>> guest: if we can't make him a centrist, this is going to work. what i want to do is give him a party that he would be excited about. one is exactly right about. most of america goes to the general election and they say that they're going to hold their nose. they are going to say what the other guy said, doesn't bother me more, so the republican here, i'm going to pretend and i can't put words in his mouth, i'm going to ignore their view on gay marriage because the budgets it and trim budget deficit matters most. and then you're going to say i care a lot about this and i'm going to ignore the teachers unions. so everyone is ignoring something. i thought he said it beautifully. the idea is that dirty talk about the fiscal situation that we will start with simpson-bowles. we feel that the candidate that would go to washington and the idea is to compromise and get the deal done. to come back and talk to them like that, you would have to apologize. never to raise taxes and you are

done. and instead you promise the deal deficit and i did that. and he may not like all of it, but you like what we have done in this direction and this is the prototypical person we want someone to get excited about. >> you're watching live coverage of booktv on c-span2 coverage of the 13th annual national book festival. we are here in washington dc and we are in the history and biography tent and we are talking with charles wheeling, "the centrist manifesto" in this book. we have a call from jon in michigan. >> caller: it hello and if you think the number of independents would be reluctant to declare party affiliation, you know, representing a significant number and usually it is an exclusive outlet, whether you

will be voting for one party or the other. >> it is very important a very important thing. what we want to do is not make the centrist party with a capital letter and exclusive. and this is other folks were kind of playing in this middle ground. includes organizations like no labels that work with two existing parties including supporting moderate republicans and democrats and so on. but i think you're right, a lot of independents just don't like political parties. but they are likely, when it comes down to this, they are likely to like the centrist candidate better than the other two. they don't have to become centrist. this is another good point that you raise and this will be an attractive candidate for those independents even if they are averse to political parties.

and they have an oligopoly and they like to keep competition down. and one of the reasons we want to create a national movement is to provide money and boots on the ground when you need to get a candidate on the ballot and what you have to do is get a lot of signatures usually in a short amount of time. people commit to this party from california and michigan and florida and it may not have a candidate there. we are trying to get him on the ballot. >> you mention this and we have a tweet that has a viable third party. and he says that the electoral college does this you do have to

keep your institutional classes on here i think that this is very difficult and there may be some swing districts where you might actually get traction. but i don't think you'll get enough to make a difference. >> the compromises still something they were not sent to do, at least by the extreme. so it's all well and good. but i don't want to go back to the folks and apologize. i want him to be able to come back and say that i did what i told you i would do. and we are keeping the two parties together.

>> we have a house on one side, the presidency being on the other. >> there is no magic wand. if you have a president is not committed to doing anything, it is tough to muster the two thirds. and the centrist probably are going to get you there. and this is a system that it's very easy to do nothing. so the president could be an obstacle. and this includes the bipartisan working group. and there is a bill that has been passed in the house and the presidency and we have a social security group that has been passed. it's a bill that has been passengers sitting on the play.

the cost of doing nothing politically is probably part of that. and i think that these are the tools we can send over to the other tumors and that is probably the best that we can do >> caller: going through this, the problem that i've heard talk about is part of the two-party system himself. there's nothing in the constitution that says he has to have a two-party system that single member districts for legislatures have mathematically generated two-party divide. in both parties are rotten blocks, forced together by the other side.

so you have people in the republican party who have nothing to do with each other. and we have people in the democratic party that have nothing to do with each other. and wouldn't it be better to have proportional representation is a system like most modern democracies have been people who vote this, they have 10% and the tea party gets 10%. and they get 30% of the centrist party. and each party gets that percentage of that in the legislature. and wouldn't that get rid of the gerrymandering problem and a ron block problem where everyone is forced to be in the same party except mutual hatred of the other side. and would it not make a more honest legislative process and there are people from factual political parties that represent

real political views and they have to get together and negotiate policies because no one has an absolute majority. >> i think we got the point. >> i think he gave us the better half of most politics classes. ..

which makes the peace process more difficult. what you do with any system you trade one set of problems for another. the fundamental take away is govern mans is hard. it's getting us to agree on a common course of action. it's not easy here or anywhere at any time. make it economics and make it statistics are the two other books. teaching at dart mouth, currently. here is the cover.

>> caller: it's funny the person before me said what i was leading to. in my mind, people who earn $50,000 to perhaps $200 -- $300 ,000 have more in common with each other as opposed to just being a democrat or a republican it seems like the 49ers or the raiders. one side or the other. in reality, if you take away -- in fact going farther than what the parliament i are and no party system. people are elected for the ideas and then the chamber, the congress, and the senate are set up a different way where these 500/600 -- whatever people come up with a different order how they go about making rules or deciding things. that's my idea. thank you.

>> there are a lot of smart people who say do away with the party. it's a tough thing to do. george washington didn't like the party. i would say they have some benefit and provide at lough information and provide a lot of organizational power. i would say this gets back to your call and the one before it. the current parties are a comp police -- compilation. environmental responsibility and social tolerance. people are organize around and believe in and get excited about. as opposed to just growing their lot with a coalition of folk for with whom they have nothing in common owner to win seats. here is the cover published by norton. thank you for joining us on the national mall in booktv. >> it's a great event. it's a pleasure to be here. the event was part of the 2013 national book festival in washington, d.c.

for more information, visit loc.gov/book fest. when did the u.s. slave trade start? how did it start? >> well, the u.s. was involved in the slave trade from the moment we sort of began as a colony of britain, and indeed one of the interesting things about u.s. history. in the constitutional convention there was a comprise between the states that had slaves and the states that didn't. the u.s. constitution said that the federal congress couldn't take any action against the slave trade until 1808 and the u.s., at the first moment it could, president jefferson sent legislation up to congress that banned participation in the slave trade by u.s. ships and u.s. persons and congress passed that. in 1808 the u.s. prohibited the slave trade which was a long time, before, of course, slavery

i.t. ended in the united. the issue were seen as different and even southerners were in support of banning the slave trade. why were southerners in support of that. >> a lot of rather reasons. one, it was perceived as unjust or inhumane part of traffic. they had an economic self-interest. they already owned slaves and the environment in the u.s. was such that slave mortality was not as high in sash plantations as it was in place like cuba or brazil. where slaves didn't live for very long because the environment and disease. here in the u.s. if they were tbel treated as they could be, they would live for, you know, a decent lifespan. and so slave owners perceived that actually by banning the slave trade it would increase the value of the slaves they owned. it would limit the influx of slaves and the ability of their neighbors to buy new slaves. it was an odd colation. >> you have a chart in the book that showses